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Negotiations on a national community pharmacy prescribing service will begin from April 2026, NHS England has confirmed.
In a letter sent to integrated care boards (ICBs) on 30 October 2025, NHS England said that after the ‘Independent prescribing in community pharmacy pathfinder programme’ ends in December 2025, ICBs will be encouraged to continue local sites, where possible, with support from a payment of £1,500 per pathfinder site and access to prescribing IT system Cleo Solo.
From April 2026, NHS England will consult with Community Pharmacy England (CPE) to determine what will form any part of a national service offer, which will be informed by learnings from the pathfinder programme, it added.
In the letter, NHS England told ICBs to:
- Agree locally which pathfinder sites they wish to continue after 31 December 2025, as well as which clinical models will be maintained. Active pharmacy sites with patient consultation activity should also be prioritised;
- Consider extending local commissioning arrangements to any existing service arrangements to cover the interim period until 31 March 2026, where possible;
- Prepare for the closure of pathfinder sites that won’t continue after December 2025, including closing down cost centres, Cleo profiles and deactivating NHS smartcard roles.
In addition, NHS England committed to publishing the national evaluation of the pathfinder programme — which has now been completed by the University of Manchester — and sharing other learning developed through focus groups and stakeholder engagement.
It also said it would set out a framework for commissioners to support the governance and assurance of prescribing in community pharmacy.
Previously, NHS England revealed that more than 30,000 consultations had taken place in prescribing pathfinder pilots, almost two-thirds of which were for minor ailments.
Speaking at The Pharmacy Show, held in Birmingham on 12 and 13 October 2025, Janet Morrison, chief executive of CPE, told delegates that while she was “conscious that the sector wants a prescribing service to be commissioned through community pharmacy” in time for newly qualified prescribing pharmacists to enter the workforce in summer 2026, negotiating any new service would be ‘difficult’ without new money.
